Youths challenged to know their strong, weak points

Youths in the country have been challenged to understand their problems well and inform government leaders, policy and decision makers so that they can be addressed.

This was said in Dar es Salaam yesterday by Germany Foundation for World Population Project Officer Elinami Mungure during a workshop on advocacy and resource mobilisation as part of the implementation of the East African Community (EAC) investment in youth projects.

The workshop drew participants from the youth servicing in civil society organisations from both Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar.

Mungure said youth problems were dynamic but people at the decision making level were not updated frequently on youth struggles, as a result their problems failed to be addressed properly.

“If the youth are well informed about their problems they can communicate correctly to public leaders, who will be able to address their problems properly,” Mungure said.

Mungure, however, noted that the workshop would enable the youth to build capacity on sexual reproductive health rights and access better services.

Commenting on the project, Mungure said a three-year project funded by the European Commission was being implemented in five East African countries.

He said the objective of the project was to contribute to the improvement of the youth and ultimately the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 3, 5 and 6, promoting a holistic approach in line with the principles of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the ICPD+5 Programme of Action.

“The project also aims at building individual competences, collective capabilities and overall capacity of adolescent and youth serving CSOs necessary to advocate effectively the development and implementation of adolescent and youth sensitive policies, programmes and budgets,” he said.

The project is implemented in partnership with DSW, the EAC and the Ministry of Health.

One of the participants, Donald Donald, from Iringa based Tanzania Rural Women and Children Development Foundation said the workshop would help the youth build capacity on sexual reproductive health rights.

Another participant, Nasra Ishek Yusuf, from Zanzibar Nurses Association said the workshop was crucial to her because it would help her educate other young people about sexual reproductive health.

She said in Zanzibar sexual reproductive health was poorly implemented due to traditions and customers, as a result most young people were denied their basic rights such as accessing sexual reproductive health services.

She said there was no transparency between parents and their children and so the latter failed to tell them about sexual reproductive health and since the youth grew up uninformed they ended up getting unwanted pregnancies and other related complications.